Mersey
by Estoma
Summary: "Goodbye sounds so final; it's almost scientific." Drabbles for Caesar's Palace Shipping Week. Australian AU.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note: Seven drabbles for the Caesar's Palace Shipping Week. All the places mentioned are very much real.**

**Day 1: Finnick/Annie**

They're moored in the wide mouth of the Mersey and she's leaning on the rail and thinking about the oil scum in the current, and the way his hair falls into his eyes when he leans down to kiss her. The grain silos are all grey cement. Trains are waiting to be loaded with wheat; everything leaves the little port-town, rushing south. But Annie stands at the bow and looks out at the river mouth. They're a thousand miles from home in an unfamiliar port. She's thinking of the washing-up piled in the sink. She's wondering how to say goodbye.


	2. Chapter 2

**Day 2: Cato/Katniss**

The autumn leaves have held too long to the branches; by the time they fall, they are brown and dead. Now they cling wetly to her boots. Cato's gone back to the car. She walks through the arboretum and looks sadly at the maples and elms, so far from their northern home. Autumn is a time for endings, but that doesn't make it any easier to say what she must. When Cato catches up to her, she's walking among the gum trees. Their leaves are resolutely green. He hands her the beanie she forgot. _Goodbye is such an ugly word_.


	3. Chapter 3

**Day 3: Haymitch/Effie**

There have always been geese at Bell's Parade. He remembers feeding them as a boy, brown bread from a brown paper bag. They like the stale crusts as much as fresh white loaves; Haymitch thinks them foolish, but forty years later he's still bringing bread. Effie's waiting in the car. He thinks she's foolish too. He stands at the crown of the humpbacked bridge under the willows. Below him, the water is tannin-dark. Haymitch is glad that the water is too murky to hold the reflection of his sallow skin. Later, he'll say goodbye rather than tell her he's sick.


	4. Chapter 4

**Day 4: Beetee/Wiress**

He's not sure if he's fucking her because she's young enough to listen to his electrochemistry lectures with unfeigned interest, or just because she's young. There's something alluring about talking cathodes and anodes while she's in the second row from the front, sitting with her legs parted just so. Now they're drinking coffee – like a child, she has hot chocolate – at Constitution Dock. Neither of them watches the boats at anchor. He's wondering if Wiress will forgive this indiscretion like she has all the others. He doesn't know if he wants her to. Goodbye sounds so final; it's almost scientific.


	5. Chapter 5

**Day 5: Johanna/Katniss**

They're so high up on the hill that Sandy Bay spreads out like a map. The water's somewhere between grey and blue, and there's whitecaps in the bay; it's an ugly sort of day. Johanna turns from the window at the click of the kettle boiling. She makes a cup of earl grey but doesn't drink it. Katniss always has peppermint tea. When they first moved in together Johanna bought the kettle; Katniss bought the toaster. Soon, she's going to have to tell Katniss she's moving in with her boyfriend. When she does, she'll leave the kettle like an apology.


	6. Chapter 6

**Day 5: Canon/OC (Johanna/Fallon)**

Wild banksias surround the little rural airport. When the planes land, they taxi through a bright gold avenue. The air is always sickly sweet and acrid with nectar and jet fuel, but Johanna thinks it smells like _goodbye. _Fallon trails after her, carrying her bags. He hasn't noticed the wattle threads caught in his hair, and Johanna can't be bothered telling him. She's wishing he'd just dropped her off, because he always makes goodbyes so hard. She knows he'll wait in the terminal until her plane takes off.

"For fuck's sake," she mutters. "I'm only going home for a week."


	7. Chapter 7

**Day 7: Free pairing (Fallon/Johanna)**

Battered by the coastal winds, the wattles have lost their beauty. Gold threads fill the gutter and the cracks in the concrete. It's a half-hearted welcome. A plane swings by the terminal and Fallon's head jerks up. It's only a mail plane, back from King Island with half a dozen passengers. Another hour wears away before the announcement comes; Townsville airport is closed until the cyclone spends itself. Johanna calls, then. Somewhere in the midst of her frustration her voice softens. _You know, I was actually looking forward to seeing you again. _Fallon looks at the ruined wattle and smiles.


	8. Chapter 8

**For Shady, for completing all the days on time. **

The rocks are red and orange, full of ancient iron. Above them the sky is the sort of blue that you could fall into. _You'd just keep falling and that colour would never leech away,_ Johanna thinks. Usually, she's not given to melancholy, but there's something about the last day of a holiday. An exquisite regret has seeped into the rocks and the sky.

"You ready to get moving, Jo?" Finnick asks.

"Just another minute."

She leans back against Finnick and he shifts his feet in the soft sand to accommodate her. They're saying goodbye to the Bay of Fires.


End file.
